Mede-oprichter van het rietkwintet Calefax Raaf Hekkema (1968) heeft zich, na zijn gewaagde Paganini-project met de 24 Caprices in 2006, ditmaal gestort op de Partita's voor soloviool van J.S. Bach. Hij is serieus te werk gegaan door onder meer informatie en inspiratie op te doen bij barokvioliste Lucy van Dael, die zelf deze werken in 1999 op Naxos uitbracht. Het resultaat mag er zijn in een iets te ruime opname (enig minpuntje), waarin de virtuositeit nergens de overhand krijgt. Integendeel, in Hekkema's spel klinkt veel innerlijke rust en speelvreugde door. Slechts op een paar momenten mis je de typische klankeigenschappen van de viool, maar dat stoort nergens en je raakt snel gewend aan de fraaie eenheid van klank die Hekkema uit zijn instrumenten haalt.
Johann Sebastian Bach - Partitas for Saxophone
Raaf Hekkema (sopraan en alt saxofoon)
Tracklisting
1
Partita II , BWV 1004 Allemanda
2
Partita II , BWV 1004 Corrente
3
Partita II , BWV 1004 Sarabanda
4
Partita II , BWV 1004 Giga
5
Partita II , BWV 1004 Ciaccona
6
Partita III , BWV 1006 Preludio
7
Partita III , BWV 1006 Loure
8
Partita III , BWV 1006 Gavotte en rondeau
9
Partita III , BWV 1006 Menuet I – Menuet II
10
Partita III , BWV 1006 Bourrée
11
Partita III , BWV 1006 Gigue
12
Partita I, BWV 1002 Allemanda
13
Partita I, BWV 1002 Double
14
Partita I, BWV 1002 Corrente
15
Partita I, BWV 1002 Double-Presto
16
Partita I, BWV 1002 Sarabande
17
Partita I, BWV 1002 Double
18
Partita I, BWV 1002 Tempo di Borea
19
Partita I, BWV 1002 Double
Raaf Hekkema: In 2012 I recorded, purely for personal use, all the Bach solo arrangements I had made up until then, including the first four movements of the second partita. After listening to them I realized that my self-imposed decree to keep my hands off the chaconne from that partita, suddenly no longer seemed etched in stone. So I took a stab at producing a convincing version of it. Following my Paganini formula, I first made an ‘analytical’ version: one that would do justice to the construction of the music, disregarding all thoughts of what might be fun to play. An important step, because otherwise you end up taking the instrumental route too soon. Bach’s music is implicitly polyphonic: a melody usually contains more than one voice, played in turn and together forming the melodic curve as a whole. The register and relationship between the voices largely determine the buildup of tension in the music. This applies to nearly all of Bach’s music, but in the violin works he often uses multiple strings simultaneously to explicitly underscore the polyphony. So first I had to find a credible solution for the issue of polyphony. After that the other me would get his chance: the saxophone player who had free rein to determine what sounded good and, perhaps more importantly, where the advantages of the saxophone over the violin (arpeggios, for instance, are easier to play on the saxophone) could be put to good use. In this inner collaboration, the analyst constantly had the upper hand, for we were talking about a meticulously constructed work by the greatest musical architect ever. The resulting version satisfied both my identities: the analyst and the instrumentalist. With a sense of liberation I set to work on the remaining movements of the partitas, which went with hardly a hitch.
